[quote][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_slop][b]Warning: AI Slop[/b][/url]
This game is partially or completely made with talentless, soulless AI generated content.[/quote]
This is the lamest Vampire Survivors ripoff ever seen. It's vibe coded AI slop, the developer ripped off Vampire Survivors... the only thing that isn't AI slop (I guess) is the graphics because they look like were done in MS-Paint or just procedurally generated (okay, maybe that's AI slop too). Primitive polygons is all you get, and no, you can't change the resolution or anything.
So the game just has you move your mouse around to auto-attack various shapes. Every 30 seconds (developer couldn't work out how to prompt ChatGPT to do an XP system) you get to buy an upgrade based on the "cash" you get from killing the shapes. Incrementer style, these just increase the rate at which you kill the shapes. Truly pointless, shallow AI slop... with a big price tag on it.
So this is less a game, and more an attempt from a shady non-developer to scam gamers out of money for AI slop.
The game is very simplistic, small and limited in scope and ambition. This feels more like a tech demo, proof of concept or student homework assignment rather than a fully fledged product designed for PC gamers. As such it doesn't offer any real value as a serious PC game.
From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
The game features some of the laziest, most minimalist "art" you're likely to see outside of a low effort Flash or browser game. This is supposed to be a PC game but it looks worse than primitive 3D games of the 1990s. When developers are lazy/untalented and the graphics are phoned in this badly, you end up with stuff like this that doesn't meet basic visual quality standards.
There's also the old adage that those who lack the budget and talent to make their own game assets usually lack the budget and talent to do the rest of the job of game development properly, too, and that's glaringly obvious here.
You can always spot lazy shovelware when the developer doesn't even bother including basic options like customisable display settings, graphics tweaks, or control remapping. In this case, the developer [i]did not include a settings menu at all.[/i] It's obvious this is a lazy, minimum viable product cash grab.
With no settings menu, the controls can't be customised at all, which will frustrate many players, but more seriously it can render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, left handed gamers, or anyone on an AZERTY or other international keyboard layout or non-QWERTY layout.
There's no resolution options and no graphics settings of any kind. No way to set a native resolution, no way to tweak the visuals to improve performance or quality so it's tailored to your hardware. Unacceptable on any PC game.
These technical shortcomings push this game below minimum standards for any competently developed modern PC game.
The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the game all-time peak player count was only ONE player. That's right, only one person ever played this at a time. When I played this for the purposes of reviewing it, I equalled the peak player count for the game. OUCH.
The only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 130 million gamers on Steam and well over 175,000+ games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
Let's talk about pricing and the actual value this has for gamers. Is this game one of the best of the 175,000+ games on Steam?
Shapemonger has the far too high price of around $5 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam.
For comparison, the $5 asking price for this game could get you games like "Portal", "The Walking Dead" or "Fallout 4". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.
The quality problems and defects with this game makes the asking price totally unrealistic. It's impossible to recommend this to gamers here on Steam.
The use of AI slop is a direct insult to gamers and real, ethical content creators and artists everywhere.
[quote][b][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/b]
Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.[/quote]
